[Members] Proposal for membership process changes

Hi folks, These have come up before, but I don't think the board has ever actually voted on them as an agenda item (forgive me if I'm wrong, but I found no record of it). Therefore, I would like these two membership-related proposals to be picked up for discussion and voting by the board: 1) Make the publication of members' real names optional This has come up a number of times, and there is broad consensus that we don't need to publish real names of our members, even if we may need to have them privately on file. This proposal would be to explicitly permit members to reveal their names only to the XSF Secretary, and allow pseudonyms to be used elsewhere. I believe that adoption of this proposal would help encourage more people to join the XSF as members, who may be unwilling to publish their real name on the internet, or connect their identity with the XSF (for which I can think of countless possible reasons). 2) Cease publishing vote tallies for membership applications It has been raised before, by someone who said it contributed to not renewing their membership, that the presence of "no" votes on the membership page was not a good experience. Realistically, it is very rare for members to be accepted unanimously (most people have some "no" votes, and this will only increase as our membership increases). However, I fear that publishing the vote counts turns it into something of an unnecessary popularity contest, even if it isn't aiming to be one. It's not necessary for them to be public, as long as we keep the results on file. For people who are part of minorities in our community, it can be disconcerting to be told that some people voted against them, and to have a publicly visible record and ranking. Therefore I am proposing reduction of our membership results to a list of accepted members instead of publishing tallies publicly. I am not proposing changes to our council or board elections, as I think those would need additional consideration and may warrant greater transparency. Regards, Matthew